lt cap,

Indeed - it's the bane of fallen companies - can't lowball estimates or you'll get punished further for a poor(er) outlook. Can't highball them, as you'll lose further credibility. I guess the only thing one can hope for is that the CEO does have an accurate handle on future prospects.

I'm curious/concerned about this: Tech doesn't stay static. If we're talking about 2 or more years before capex spending becomes less dismal as 5g really is introduced, is it possible that the players with the best technology may change entirely, as R and D brings new products online to sell? Or are development timelines so long that one can assume that NOK would have nearly the same technology chops and leads that it has today when the time comes that spending finally increases? I am reminded of a part of INFN's offerings becoming instantly obsolete by the software implementation that replaced one of their lines of hardware. Or that (if I've got it right) INTC's and Micron's announcement of Optane memory, which will radically shift the solid state memory market, wasn't announced until it was almost ready for market.

Speaking of which - Here's the first review I've seen of their consumer version of Optane, labeling it as the fastest SSD device Tom's Hardware ever tested, altho it is pricey, altho they chalk that up to 'high demand':   tomshardware.com/re...cation

From what I've read, it seems that Optane will be the successor to NAND/flash, as it is stunningly faster. How much of INTC's business it will account for, I don't know. But they and Micron are the sole owners of this thing, and if they're not the sole vendors, then I'd think the need to 'bend the knee' and pay handsome licensing fees if others want to produce this next-gen memory should be a nice stream of revenue for a long time. Good to be king.